Training and BAT Practice 9/11/2010

At last! I get to fight!!!

Really, I've barely fought at all since May. Most of my fighting was in the West, at Crown and at West/An Tir war. Hardly fought at all since Pennsic.

However, September marks a kick into gear of my training for Crown. I've been working out three days a week--sometimes at the gym, sometimes just calesthenics, sometimes doing yoga and working with my indian clubs, sometimes just by riding my bike to work in Manhattan. For instance: last saturday was a lot of dancing at my cousin's wedding (counts), Calesthenics on Monday, Indian clubs and yoga on Tuesday, (skipped Nutley due to Hrosh Hoshona), kettle bell workout and eliptical on Friday.

And today I fought at BAT.

Now that the holidays are mostly over, I can fall into a normal schedule: fight Sunday, gym Monday, est tuesday, fight Wednesday, Gym either Thursday evening or Friday morning, some form of long aerobics (run, bike ride, class or fighting at an event) on Saturday. My hope is still to be in armor ten (now nine) times before Crown. That will include coronation and one or two other events.

Speaking of BAT, I got to run it and I ran it like a class. It was great. There were four of us--two OTC's (Gui and William McCrimmon), Oscad the King'd Champion, and me a knight. That's tallent. We warmed up and then we each fought each other. We'd stop after each fight and discuss it, point up what we saw, look for any flaws and discuss them, etc. This got people into the mode of analyzing fights while watching them, thinking about what their opponents were doing, and talking about it.

My own fights were good. I lost once to Gui and once to Oscad. Gui I lost to because I tried to execute the William the Lucky passing shot (much like the Lucan shot, but with a snap to set it up and targetting the head instead of the ribs). I hit him, but light, and he hit me in the ribs. Normally I wouldn't use that kind of technique against Gui, but I wanted to test it. I am actually happy that the technique worked even if my own form was off. He ahd ducked a bit out of my power range.

In my losing fight with Oscad we had taken each others legs and I just kind of got frustrated and started flailing, and he got inside my attack and killed me with a cross shot.

My victories were really good. I took Bill's leg and then thrust him to the face. Then the second time I fought him I took his leg and set up the thrust but, when he had that covered, I changed it up and cut, moving left. My win against oscad I took his leg and got him with a quick face thrust. My kill against Gui he went for his deep leg attack (turtling behind his shield and going for the leg) which with the center grip is easy to cover. I timed his attack and killed him with a wrap.

Then I did some training. With our new guy I taught him to salute, to walk, and to walk through the wards, then I taught him the pell drill (the first three lessons in the book I'm working on). Bill I ran thorough the basic DeGrendels techniques (three ranges and the three wards, 90 degree angle of the arm, and magic button press points).